Tonight the Roma 7s starts with the opening ceremony. Tomorrow the games begin at 9 AM, the final is fixed (?) saturday evening late. Playing teams? Apparently, 16 men's and 8 women's ones. Who are them? I don't know. As every year the organizers are too tired to give details. I think World Rugby should award them the title of Laziest Rugby Organizers in the World. The website is the same year by year (they just change the year's date and the sponsors brands; sponsors seem the only important thing for them), the brochure is updated just here and there with some infos still referring to 2016 (but which of the infos? You must guess), the facebook page shows a mastery in english language even worse than mine with useless lines of two or three words (are you ready?, great tournament!, great teams!...). Tv live? Yes, a long live transmission on Rai Sport saturday evening! But it was last year. This year? Probably no live tv, so they let last year's infos on the brochureI think the tournament for them is just a moment to make parties and a good chance to collect money with sponsors and government's funds

Spot on. I visited their website to know who Catalonia was going to face in both men's and women's tournaments and it was totally disappointing. But over here in Spain 7s tournaments are also a bit chaotic.

We are giving too much credit to Tier 1s rugby press. They know nothing about T2-3s and they probably speculated that thinking it would be GOOD (because in T1s minds many times less is better). I don't see any evidence in WR's way of organizing the sevens that this could be true. Probably just a misunderstanding. Look at the phrase:

Other changes include reducing the number of teams taking part in the series from 16 to 12, which would suit Great Britain participating as it would take two teams out of the equation - though concerns have been raised about the circuit being watered down if World Rugby retain the 16-nation series and force three of its high-performing teams to combine.

Ghana (recently made a WR full member) will take part in the African qualification tournament for the 2018WRC7s

The Ghana Rugby Football Union (GRFU) has been drawn to take part in the Rugby Afrique Men’s Sevens Tournament that will take place in Kampala Uganda on the 6th and 7th of October 2017. This tournament serves as the qualifier for the Sevens Rugby World Cup 2018, the Commonwealth Games, and the World Series repechage tournament in Hong Kong. Ghana Rugby got into this tournament because it qualified as a full member of World Rugby on 10 May 2017 in a record time of less than three years under the administration of Herbert Mensah as President.

Eight other teams automatically qualified for the tournament, namely Uganda, Namibia, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal and Botswana. Because Rugby Afrique could not organise a qualifier playoff between the other possible three teams – Mauritius, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana – the executive committee drew in a transparent and unbiased fashion between the three countries. Ghana came out first, then Mauritius and then Cote d’Ivoire.

usasevensrugby This will be EPIC! 12 of the best #rugby teams in the world competing this November at San Jose's @avayastadium FEATURING:USA, Fiji, New Zealand, Samoa England, Australia, Ireland, Canada, Tonga, Japan, Chile, and China!

victorsra wrote:We are giving too much credit to Tier 1s rugby press. They know nothing about T2-3s and they probably speculated that thinking it would be GOOD (because in T1s minds many times less is better). I don't see any evidence in WR's way of organizing the sevens that this could be true. Probably just a misunderstanding. Look at the phrase:

Other changes include reducing the number of teams taking part in the series from 16 to 12, which would suit Great Britain participating as it would take two teams out of the equation - though concerns have been raised about the circuit being watered down if World Rugby retain the 16-nation series and force three of its high-performing teams to combine.

It really is disappointing that this kind of thinking persists. Particularly as its not true. Many of the teams on the fringe could be quite competitive in the series and would continue to develop to become more competitive with the exposure it would provide. Personally, If we do see a team GB then I hope they retain the 16 team format. The more the merrier quite frankly. I also hope they get cracking on a as I like to frame it a 'World League' below the World Series. Make it regionally based using a number of the structures already in place and building on them. Something like 8 teams in each of the four regions (Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific and Americas) playing in 6-8 tournaments. Top 4 to HK to play-off for promotion etc.

Working Class Rugger wrote:It really is disappointing that this kind of thinking persists. Particularly as its not true. Many of the teams on the fringe could be quite competitive in the series and would continue to develop to become more competitive with the exposure it would provide. Personally, If we do see a team GB then I hope they retain the 16 team format. The more the merrier quite frankly. I also hope they get cracking on a as I like to frame it a 'World League' below the World Series. Make it regionally based using a number of the structures already in place and building on them. Something like 8 teams in each of the four regions (Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific and Americas) playing in 6-8 tournaments. Top 4 to HK to play-off for promotion etc.

When this plan first came out, I brainstormed a format that I think serves as a fair compromise on the issue. The World Series season would start out with 16 core teams and the first six tournaments of the year use the current 16-team tournament format. After the sixth tournament, the top 12 teams in the standings would continue in the World Series for the remaining four tournaments, now using the Olympic format, and would be guaranteed a place in the series for the next season. The bottom 4 teams would join 8 nations who qualified through regional competitions (basically the same way it's done now but merging the Americas into one competition, and Asia and Oceania into another) in a qualifying series of tournaments, also played with the Olympic format. The top 4 teams in the standings at the end of the qualifying series join the World Series for the next season.

The main reason that the cutoff point is six tournaments is because tournament #7 is Hong Kong, and it makes sense to continue having that tournament function as both a World Series event and a qualifying event. Last year, the standings were pretty set after six tournaments - the top six and bottom five teams finished the series in the exact same places that they were in after six tournaments - so I don't think that's too early in the series to determine who the worst teams are but it's admittedly a fairly arbitrary cutoff. A seven/three split of the two formats might be a little more fair.

I don't think it would be a bad thing to add a little variety to the series in this way, and the qualifying series would create a credible second tier for this code and give nations outside of the current core more opportunities to test themselves in a meaningful way.

Another possibility is to have a system with all 15 core teams playing a Qualy Regional Series. At the main series the teams would be playing for the 7 or 8 spots in the Champions Trophy tournament.

The Qualy series would consist of 4 Series: Asia-Pacific, European, African and Americas. Euopean and Asia-Pacific could qualify 4 core teams each for the next season, Americas and Africa 2 each. The last 3 core teams could be decided during the Champions Trophy.

- December to May: max 10 tournaments;

- June to July: 3 Regional tournaments for each region;

- August: the Champions Trophy (2 tournaments: the 8 best of the world in the top tournament and the Qualy tournament with 2 teams from each Regional Qualy series... If one top 8 teams fail in the Qualy Regional Series, make the 3rd placed team of the Qualy play the 8th of the Champions Trophy in a final Qualy match).

What about the Continental titles? Each continent also could have 1 final full tournament. This means a sevens season with 15 tournaments. As every year there us something else, like the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, the Pan American Games, etc, we are talking about a max 16 tournaments season for a top national team. This makes the sevens teams permanent squads for the whole season just like clubs or Super Rugy franchises.

A map of the 18 italian males pre-selected and the 24 females pre-selected for the incoming Euro U18 7s championships, just to confirm that Lombardia (central north) and Veneto (eastern north) are the leading rugby regions in Italy

Canalina wrote:A map of the 18 italian males pre-selected and the 24 females pre-selected for the incoming Euro U18 7s championships, just to confirm that Lombardia (central north) and Veneto (eastern north) are the leading rugby regions in Italy

So the three southernmost clubs I'm guessing based in Naples, Catania and Siracusa?

Wales defeated Israel 81-0 with thirteen tries, I don't know if it could be a record. In the same day (yesterday) Japan defeated Uzbekistan 80-0 in the asian U17 championship, but "just" with twelve tries

That, and the country is making a bid to host a Series tournament in 2020.

Perhaps World Rugby should look into some sort of preseason series in the buildup to the SWS where potential hosts (Munich, Suva, Nairobi, etc.) get to host a tournament as proof of their ability to organize a tournament and teams get to test out new players and build up to their season. Clearly there is demand for the latter based on the response to the Silicon Valley 7s.

Philippines, Malaysia and Taiwan are mathematically out (Taiwan played in three editions of the 7s World Cup). Sri Lanka and also China are almost out; the two tickets for San Francisco should be an affair between the leading three

Africa Cup - Two changes in the list previously presented by Rugby Africa for the tournament of 6-7 october in Kampala, qualifying to the World Cup: Kenya (already qualified) and Nigeria (still suspended?) leave their spots to Zambia and Ghana.Teams: Uganda, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Tunisia, Senegal, Botswana, Morocco, Zambia, Ghanahttps://scontent-mxp1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... 9014_n.jpg

Oktoberfest 7s - Great pool of teams for this weekend's tournament in Munich. I don't know if they are the "real" national teams or weakened squads. Six nations from Europe (unfortunately no Italy), two from Africa, two from South America, two from Oceania. http://oktoberfest7s.com/match-schedule/